Monday Mish-Mash (and Open Thread)
It rained here yesterday, an event that was much more exciting even than the Super Bowl. We probably got just a quarter inch of rain, but for a drought-stricken region, even that is thrilling. There are storms lined up along the California coast . . . but that damned high pressure system refuses to let them pass. The lizard part of my brain, the one taken up with magical thinking, keeps hoping that one of these storms will batter the high pressure system so hard that it breaks. I know weather doesn’t work that way, but most days lately that fantasy is the best that I can do.
Still, and thankfully, there’s always blogging. I’m sadly lacking in original thought at the moment, but others do have interesting stuff to say:
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Apropos yesterday’s Super Bowl blowout, I learned two things about Seahawk’s coach Pete Carroll: He’s quite possibly a 9/11 Truther and he graduated from Redwood High School in the heart of Marin County. Hmmm. I wonder if the two are related?
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The IRS is planning on formalizing its persecution of conservative and Tea Party groups. Until February 27, however, you can have a say in the matter. At American Thinker, Sylvia Bokor mourns the fact that only slightly more than 20,000 people have weighed in, out of an American population greater than 300 million. I’m not surprised. First, most people truly don’t care; second, those who do care now have reason to worry that if they comment on the proposal, they’re basically signing on to the IRS’ future target list. Chilling, that’s what it is.
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Daniel Greenfield, aka Sultan Knish, takes on the belief fostered in every school child since about 1968 that, by signing on to the right (er, Left) charity, you too can save the world. To him, this is the idiot stepchild of free enterprise and Leftism:
The West can’t fix Africa no matter how much of the price of a cup of coffee it donates. By attempting to fix it, Africa and the West become entangled in each other’s problems, each worsening the problems of the other instead of solving them.
No one can save Africa except Africans. No one can fix Detroit except the majority of the people who live there. Social problems aren’t solved by nationalizing them or internationalizing them. They aren’t solved by engaging and guilt tripping those who have already solved those problems and live thousands of miles away but by engaging the people who live right there and are part of the problem.
If a man is drowning, you can toss him a rope. But if a man jumps into the water, tossing him a rope doesn’t accomplish anything. A physical problem can be solved by applying the right resources, but a human problem can’t be solved except when the affected humans change their attitudes or behaviors.
I am grateful to him for articulating something I’ve always felt in my bones, but couldn’t put into words.
